Mention of Smith College kept turning
up on television shows this winter. A recent subplot of a "Boston
Public" episode on the Fox network sent the vice principal
of the featured Boston high school to interview for the coveted
job of conductor of the "Northampton Symphony Orchestra."

The camera follows character "Scott
Guber," as he drives west for his interview, along the Massachusetts
Turnpike, then north on Route 91, passing signs reading "Smith
College" and "Northampton 1 mile." Then he drives
through downtown Northampton, past various Main Street landmarks
including Thorne's, the Academy of Music and the Smith College
gates.

In February, Warner Bros. Television,
producers of the "The West Wing," requested a Smith
sweatshirt-and permission to wear it- for character "Ainsley,"
who is a Smith alum. Ainsley is a Republican working for the
show's Democratic president and White House staff. The script
called for her to wear the Smith shirt while working in the set
of her West Wing office, but producers later decided the wearing
of the shirt would smack too much of product placement. So the
sweatshirt went back to wardrobe, but a mention of Smith College
stayed in the episode's script.

Here's how the scene went: Ainsley
tells her boss "Sam" that she is traveling to Smith,
her alma mater, the next day to be a speaker on a women's studies
department panel on resurrecting the E.R.A. Sam asks, "You're
going back to Smith College, the cradle of feminism, to argue
in opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment?"

Ainsley replies, "And get some
decent pizza, yeah." The episode aired in April.

The CBS television news program "60
Minutes" gave Smith more than a mention in its February
broadcast of an interview with the college's departing president,
Ruth Simmons. Morley Safer, the co-editor of the segment, interviewed
Simmons in December at a variety of sites including her College
Hall office, the president's house on campus and at a Boston
alumnae event featuring the campus vocal group the Smithereens.